Four Parts of Four

My baby girl is four going on fourteen. She doesn't giggle about boys, or cover her face in make up, or spend all night talking on the phone like a fourteen year old does - but she definitely has the four different personality extremes that come with the teen years.

One Part Spicy Sass:

Girlfriend may only be four, but she knows how to sass it up like a teen. She's developed a mean stare-down face that comes out when she's being told no. She stomps her feet as hard as she can and slams her door when she has been sent to her room for disobeying. She talks back, ie: when told to clean her room, she has responded with, "maybe YOU should clean up YOUR room first." These actions don't happen without consequences, let that be known.

One Part Goofy Monkey:

She can sit quietly and play by herself for long periods of time, but when she gets riled up, girlfriend goes OFF. Non-stop nonsensicle chatter. Loud bursts of screams and odd noises. She'll pick a silly word, and will run circles around the house repeating that word a million times and giggling at herself each time she repeats it. She hops and skips and dances around like her pants are full of ants. I have no idea where the energy comes from, and I can never decide if I'm annoyed, envious, or entertained. Maybe all of the above.

One Part Risky Rebel:

She used to be a bit of a follower - doing whatever her friends prompted her to do for the attention that came with her actions. But lately, she has become the rebel of the group. Today while enjoying a brisk walk through the forest with her daycare class, my girl stumbled upon a small plastic pellet (like one would use to load a pellet gun). Not knowing what it was, she decided it would be funny to stick it into her ear. Apparenly her friends had told her not to do it, but she did, and we had to take her to the doctor to have it removed from deep down in her ear canal.

One Part Sweetie Pie:

The other day my daughter had to stay home with daddy due to the onset of a sudden ear infection. I had to work late so I didn't get a chance to see her before bedtime, but her daddy filled me in on the day's events. Apparently that morning, when her daddy had offered to make her breakfast, my little girl asked him if he had made his bed. When he replied no, she said, "Ok, you go make breakfast, and I'll make the bed, cause you KNOW mommy will be mad if your bed's not made." She made the bed (quite well might I add), and decided that she should also leave a flower on my bedside table. "Daddy, I need a yellow flower and a vase please." Luckily we had a bouquet of flowers on the table to pick from. She placed them beside my side of the bed in a little vase, and said, "daddy, I'm leaving mommy a flower to show that I feel bad for waking her up in the night last night."

My girl is definitely made up of sugar and spice and everything nice. I'm learning how to deal with the four sides of my four year old, but I'm dreading what is to come when she becomes a teen. Will I survive?